Hello Momus,
Good to hear from you again.
Originally posted by Momus--
The pitiful victim in this case got nothing that the extremists who lurk within Seagoon's own sect wouldn't like to inflict on every adulterer, apostate, idolator, blasphemer, homosexual, non-believer and every other person who transgresses against their own particularly old-testament style worldview.
For every Qutb there's a Rushdoony eh Seagoon?
An interesting attempt at a parallel, but respectfully it really doesn't really come close to matching up.
Theonomy and/or Reconstructionism do not even represent a sizable minority within the Christian faith, in fact far less than 1% of all Christians world-wide adhere to theonomic doctrine. The denominations that subscribe to Theonomy are literally tiny, the largest one that I am aware of consists of 11 churches that average 90 or less members each.
My own denomination, on a number of occasions has officially repudiated Theonomic teaching, and several churches and ministers have left as a result. Here is the official PCA General Assembly position on the penal sanctions of the Judicial Law that you referred to:
QUESTION 5: 'Are the penal sanctions of the judicial laws of the Old Testament, such as those found in Deuteronomy 13, part of the general equity and, therefore, are they to be applied today as they were to the State of Israel, assuming the government as a righteous government according to the truth of God?'
ANSWER: All laws of the Old Testament were equitable for the era for which they were designed. But great care must be taken to determine precisely how they apply to the present era. In the case of Deuteronomy 13, in which the state is directed to execute any individual who attempts in private to lead someone to worship another god, and to annihilate all members of a community that worship another god, it is the interpretation of the Eleventh General Assembly that the legislation applies to the distinctive era in which Israel was established by specific divine revelation as His theocratic nation, and should not be enforced by the state in the present era.
Additionally, the constitution of our denomination contains statements that simply cannot be reconciled with Theonomy, among them:
Since ecclesiastical discipline must be purely moral or spiritual in
its object, and not attended with any civil effects, it can derive no
force whatever, but from its own justice, the approbation of an
impartial public, and the countenance and blessing of the great
Head of the Church [Jesus Christ]
...
3-4. The power of the Church is exclusively spiritual; that of the State
includes the exercise of force. The constitution of the Church derives from
divine revelation; the constitution of the State must be determined by human
reason and the course of providential events. The Church has no right to
construct or modify a government for the State, and the State has no right to
frame a creed or polity for the Church. They are as planets moving in
concentric orbits: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to
God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21)
You will also find anti-theonomic essays on my own congregation's website.
But regardless, what terrorist organizations embrace Christian Reconstructionism? What beheadings, assassinations or IED attacks have been committed by Reconstructionists? What government anywhere embraces Reconstructionism? The answer to all of these questions is
none. Additionally, the heaviest attacks on the Reconstructionist worldview
come from within the church, this is marked contrast to the silence or outright approval within the Islamic world for the prosecution of Jihad, calls for the death of Salman Rushdie, rioting over cartoons and so on.
In contrast to the teeny weeny groups of Christian and pseudo-Christian extremists, who are under fairly constant attack by the Christian community, finding entire nations that embrace and prosecute the laws of Sharia throughout the Islamic world is laughably easy. Videos of adulteresses being shot or stoned on the internet and institutional atrocities like the one I cited in the first post are a dime a dozen and Sharia is at the heart of Islam, not the fringe.
Momus, can you explain to me how Sharia is of benefit to the world, how violence and assassination
weren't part and parcel of Islam as it was practiced by Muhammad, and so on.
Rushdoony clearly didn't practice Christianity the way Christ and his apostles did, but Qutb clearly practiced Islam the same way Muhammad and his Holy Warriors did.
- SEAGOON
